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What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Mother Jones
Posted: July 20th, 2015
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/schools-behavior...
Negative consequences, timeouts, and punishment just make bad behavior worse. But a new approach really works. Teachers and administrators still rely overwhelmingly on outdated systems of reward and punishment, rooted in B.F. Skinner's mid-20th-century philosophy that human behavior is determined by consequences and bad behavior must be punished. Far from resolving children's behavior problems, these standard disciplinary methods often exacerbate them. Psychologist Ross Greene, who has taught at Harvard and Virginia Tech, has developed a ... model [that] was honed in children's psychiatric clinics and battle-tested in state juvenile facilities. In 2006 it formally made its way into a smattering of public and private schools. The results thus far have been dramatic, with schools reporting drops as great as 80 percent in disciplinary referrals, suspensions, and incidents of peer aggression. Under Greene's philosophy, you'd no more punish a child for yelling out in class or jumping out of his seat repeatedly than you would if he bombed a spelling test. You'd talk with the kid to figure out the reasons for the outburst, then brainstorm alternative strategies for the next time he felt that way. The goal is to get to the root of the problem, not to discipline a kid for the way his brain is wired. The implications of this new wave of science for teachers are profound: Children can actually reshape their brains when they learn and practice skills. When students are told this is so, both their motivation and achievement levels leap forward.
Note: Ross Greene's inspiring model is detailed in his books The Explosive Child and Lost at School.
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